The main ideas of John Locke (briefly). Philosophical and legal views of J. Locke Locke selected works t 2 m 1988

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John Locke - an outstanding philosopher of the 17th century, who had a significant impact on the formation Western philosophy. Before Locke, Western philosophers based their views on the teachings of Plato and other idealists, according to which the immortal soul of man is a means of receiving information directly from the Cosmos. Its presence allows a person to be born with a ready-made baggage of knowledge, and he no longer needed to learn.

Locke's philosophy refuted both this idea and the very existence of an immortal soul.

Facts from the biography

John Locke was born in England in 1632. His parents adhered to Puritan views, which the future philosopher did not share. After graduating with honors from Westminster School, Locke became a teacher. While teaching Greek and rhetoric to students, he himself continued to study, paying special attention to the natural sciences: biology, chemistry and medicine.

Locke was also interested in political and legal issues. The socio-economic situation in the camp prompted him to join the opposition movement. Locke becomes a close friend of Lord Ashley Cooper - a relative of the king and head of the opposition movement.

In an effort to take part in the reformation of society, he gives up his teaching career. Locke moves to the Cooper estate and, together with him and several nobles who shared their revolutionary views, prepares palace coup.

The coup attempt becomes turning point in the biography of Locke. It turns out to be a failure, and Locke, along with Cooper, is forced to flee to Holland. Here, for the next few years, he devotes all his time to the study of philosophy and writes his best works.

Cognition as a result of the presence of consciousness

Locke believed that this is the unique ability of the human brain to perceive, remember and display reality. A born baby is a blank sheet of paper, which does not yet have impressions and consciousness. It will be formed during life, based on sensory images - impressions received through the senses.

Attention! According to Locke, every idea is a product of human thought, which appeared due to already existing things.

The main qualities of things

Locke approached the creation of each theory from the standpoint of evaluating the qualities of things and phenomena. Every thing has primary and secondary qualities.

Primary qualities include objective data about a thing:

• form;
• density;
• size;
• quantity;
• ability to move.

These qualities are inherent in every object, and focusing on them, a person makes his impression of each thing.

Secondary qualities include impressions generated by the senses:

• vision;
• hearing;
• sensations.

Attention! Interacting with objects, people receive information about them, thanks to the images that arise on the basis of sensory impressions.

What is property

Locke adhered to the concept that property is the result of labor. And it belongs to the person who invested this work. So, if a person planted a garden on the land of a nobleman, then the collected fruits belong to him, and not to the owner of the land. A person should own only the property that he received by his labor. Therefore, property inequality is a natural phenomenon and it cannot be eradicated.

Basic principles of knowledge

Locke's theory of knowledge is based on the postulate: "There is nothing in the mind that was not previously in sensation." It means that any knowledge is the result of perception, personal subjective experience.

According to the degree of evidence, the philosopher divided knowledge into three types:

• initial - gives knowledge about one thing;
• demonstrative - allows you to build conclusions by comparing concepts;
• higher (intuitive) - evaluates the conformity and inconsistency of concepts directly with the mind.

According to John Locke, philosophy gives a person the opportunity to determine the purpose of all things and phenomena, to develop science and society.

Pedagogical Principles for the Education of Gentlemen

1. Natural philosophy - it included the exact and natural sciences.
2. Practical art - includes philosophy, logic, rhetoric, political and Social sciencies.
3. The doctrine of signs - unites all linguistic sciences, new concepts and ideas.

According to Locke's theory about the impossibility of naturally obtaining knowledge through the Cosmos and the forces of nature, a person masters exact sciences only through teaching. Most people are not familiar with basic mathematics. They have to resort to intense mental work for a long time to learn the mathematical postulates. This approach is also true for the development of natural sciences.

Reference! The thinker also believed that the concepts of morality and morality are inherited. Therefore, people cannot learn the norms of behavior and become full-fledged members of society outside the family.

The educational process should take into account the individual characteristics of the child. The task of the educator is to gradually teach the future gentleman all the necessary skills, which include mastering the entire spectrum of sciences and norms of behavior in society. Locke advocated separate education for children from noble families and children from commoners. The latter had to be trained in specially created working schools.

Political Views

The political views of John Locke were anti-absolutist: he advocated the change of the current regime and the establishment of a constitutional monarchy. According to him, freedom is natural and normal condition individual.

Locke rejected the ideas of Hobbes about the "war of all against all" and believed that the original concept of private property was formed among people much earlier than the establishment of state power.

Trade and economic relations should be built on a simple scheme of exchange and equality: each person seeks his own benefit, produces a product and exchanges it for another. Forcible seizure of goods is a violation of the law.

Locke was the first thinker to take part in the creation of the founding act of state. He drafted the text of the constitution for North Carolina, which in 1669 was approved and approved by the members of the popular assembly. Locke's ideas were innovative and promising: flesh to today all North American constitutional practice is based on his teachings.

Individual rights in the state

Locke considered three inalienable rights of the individual that every citizen has, regardless of his social status, as the main legal state:

1. for life;
2. to freedom;
3. on property.

The constitution of the state should be created with an eye on these rights and be a guarantor of the preservation and expansion of human freedom. Violation of the right to life is any attempt to enslave: forcible coercion of a person to any activity, appropriation of his property.

Useful video

The video details Locke's philosophy:

Religious views

Locke was a staunch supporter of the idea of ​​separating church and state. In his work The Reasonableness of Christianity, he describes the need for religious tolerance. Every citizen (with the exception of atheists and Catholics) is guaranteed freedom of religion.

John Locke considers religion not the basis of morality, but a means of strengthening it. Ideally, a person should not be guided by church dogmas, but independently come to a broad religious tolerance.

By the middle of the 17th century, the reform movement intensified in England and the Puritan church was established. Unlike the domineering and fabulously wealthy catholic church The reform movement preached the rejection of wealth and luxury, economy and restraint, diligence and modesty. Puritans simply dressed, refused all kinds of decorations and recognized the simplest food, denied idleness and empty pastime, and, on the contrary, welcomed constant work in every possible way.

In 1632, in one Puritan family, the future philosopher and educator John Locke was born. He received an excellent education at Westminster School and continued his scientific career as a teacher Greek and Rhetoric as well as Philosophy at Christ Church College.

The young teacher was interested in the natural sciences, and especially in chemistry, biology and medicine. In college, he continues to study the sciences of interest to him, while he is also concerned about political and legal issues, ethics and educational issues.

At the same time, he closely converges with a relative of the king, Lord Ashley Cooper, who led the opposition to the ruling elite. He openly criticizes the royal power and the state of affairs in England, boldly speaks out about the possibility of overthrowing the existing system and the formation of a bourgeois republic.

John Locke leaves teaching activities and settles on the estate of Lord Cooper as his personal physician and close friend.

Lord Cooper, along with opposition-minded nobles, is trying to make his dreams come true, but the palace coup has failed, and Cooper, together with Locke, has to flee to Holland in a hurry.

It was here, in Holland, that John Locke wrote his best works, which subsequently brought him worldwide fame.

Basic philosophical ideas (briefly)

The political outlook of John Locke had a huge impact on the formation political philosophy West. The "Declaration of the Rights of Man", created by Jefferson and Washington, is built on the teachings of the philosopher, especially in such sections as the creation of the three branches of government, the separation of church and state, freedom of religion and all issues related to human rights.

Locke believed that all the knowledge gained by mankind over the entire period of existence can be divided into three parts: natural philosophy (exact and natural sciences), practical art (this includes all political and social sciences, philosophy and rhetoric, as well as logic), teaching about signs (all linguistic sciences, as well as all concepts and ideas).

Western philosophy before Locke rested on the philosophy of the ancient scientist Plato and his ideas of ideal subjectivism. Plato believed that people received some ideas and great discoveries even before birth, that is, the immortal soul received information from space, and knowledge appeared from almost nowhere.

Locke in many of his writings refuted the teachings of Plato and other "idealists", proving that there is no evidence for the existence of an eternal soul. But at the same time, he believed that such concepts as morality and morality are inherited and there are people who are “morally blind”, that is, who do not understand any moral foundations and therefore are alien to human society. Although he also could not find evidence for this theory.

As for the exact mathematical sciences, most people have no idea about them, since long and methodical preparation is necessary for teaching these sciences. If this knowledge could be obtained, as the agnostics claimed, from nature, then there would be no need to strain, trying to understand the complex postulates of mathematics.

Features of consciousness according to Locke

Consciousness is a feature of only the human brain to display, remember and explain the existing reality. According to Locke, consciousness resembles a pure White list paper, on which, starting from the first birthday, you can reflect your impressions of the world around you.

Consciousness relies on sensory images, that is, obtained with the help of the senses, and then we generalize, analyze and systematize them.

John Locke believed that every thing appeared as a result of a cause, which in turn was a product of the idea of ​​​​human thinking. All ideas are generated by the qualities of already existing things.

For example, a small snowball is cold, round and white, which is why it gives rise to these impressions in us, which can also be called qualities. . But these qualities are reflected in our minds, which is why they are called ideas. .

Primary and secondary qualities

Locke considered the primary and secondary qualities of any thing. The primary qualities are those necessary to describe and consider the internal qualities of each thing. These are the ability to move, figure, density and number. The scientist believed that these qualities are inherent in every object, and already our perception forms the concept of spring and internal state objects.

Secondary qualities include the ability of things to generate certain sensations in us, and since things are able to interact with the bodies of people, they are also able to awaken sensory images in people through vision, hearing and sensations.

Locke's theories are rather obscure in relation to religion, since the concepts of "God" and "soul" in the 17th century were unshakable and inviolable. One can understand the scientist's position on this issue, since, on the one hand, Christian morality dominated him, and on the other hand, together with Hobbes, he defended the ideas of materialism.

Locke believed that “the highest pleasure of a person is happiness”, and only it can make a person act purposefully in order to achieve what he wants. He believed that since every person is attracted to things, it is this desire to possess things that makes us suffer and experience the pain of unsatisfied desire.

At the same time, we experience twofold feelings: since possession causes pleasure, and the impossibility of possession causes heartache. Locke referred to the concepts of pain such feelings as anger, shame, envy, hatred.

Locke's ideas regarding the state of state power at various stages of development of the human collective are interesting. Unlike Hobbes, who believed that in the pre-state state there was only the "law of the jungle" or the "law of power", Locke wrote that the human collective always obeyed rules more complex than the law of power, which determined the essence of human existence.

Since people are primarily rational beings, they are able to use their mind to control and organize the existence of any collective.

In the state of nature, each person enjoys freedom as a natural right given by nature itself. At the same time, all people are equal both in terms of their society and in terms of rights.

The concept of ownership

According to Locke, only labor is the basis for the emergence of property. For example, if a man planted a garden and cultivated it patiently, then the right to the result obtained belongs to him on the basis of the labor invested, even if the land does not belong to this worker.

The ideas of the scientist about property were truly revolutionary for that time. He believed that a person should not have more property than he can use. The very concept of "property" is sacred and protected by the state, so you can put up with inequality in property status.

The people as the bearer of supreme power

As a follower of Hobbes, Locke supported the "social contract theory", that is, he believed that people enter into an agreement with the state, while giving away part of their natural rights in exchange for the state protecting it from internal and external enemies.

At the same time, the supreme power is necessarily approved by all members of society, and if the supreme overlord does not cope with his duties and does not justify the trust of the people, then the people can re-elect him.

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